In former times a pretty muslin bonnet or a simple close-fitting cottage straw was thought the most appropriate covering for a little head, protecting the bright eyes from too intense light, and shielding the rosy cheeks from the sun’s too fervid kisses; but now, leaving eyes and cheeks entirely unprotected, we see _something_ placed on the sunny curls, which is elaborately trimmed with bows, feathers, a flower-garden, or perhaps a mingling of both; for, although it is too small for even a good-sized doll, the milliner, with an ingenuity which would have been praiseworthy if exercised in a more sensible manner, has contrived to pile up trimming enough to hide even the faintest suspicion of a bonnet. But, what is sadder than the lack of true taste and good common-sense in this stylish affair, we see no semblance of childlike simplicity in the wearer. And the bonnet is but the beginning of this unfortunate change which we mourn; the pretty _baby waist_, the plain white dress, the neat muslin or merino, so appropriate, which little girls used to wear, are supplanted by incomprehensible garments, the fac-simile of the grand dame’s attire; flounces, fringes, bows, and double skirts looped and festooned in an astounding manner; the child’s--no, we mean the _young lady’s_--height (there are no _children_ in these days) is less than her circumference. This dress is put on over a hoop, and the “mite” who is made to carry such an incongruous burden totters about on high-heeled boots. This tiny specimen of womanhood, hardly weaned from her mother’s breast, or, more probably, a wet-nurse’s, shakes out her redundant robes, bending and twisting her small body in grotesque imitation of the women spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah, “with haughty mien, walking _and mincing as they go_.” See how the little ape looks over her shoulders as she tottles about, to be sure that her hoops give her dress and figure the correct _wiggle_ her sharp eyes have observed in the stylish mother and her fashionable friends. It is lamentable that all the simplicity and beauty of babyhood and childhood should be destroyed by fashion. Added to the absurdity of the dress, these little women attempt to discourse on the “latest style”; with their companions or dolls you will hear them imitating the discussions on this subject that they daily hear in the parlor or nursery from their mother; or, still imitating, with a contemptuous toss of their little heads, they will inform their listeners that they “couldn’t think of ’sociating with those girls, because they are _not stylish_!”